Fragments
by ChasedByTheShadows
Summary: While hunting the Avatar on his ship, Zuko and his crew save a young girl from drowning. Her fiery passion and determination ignite a type of flame in Zuko that even he didn't know existed. But with her past shrouded in mystery, can the cautious Fire Nation prince even begin to trust her? Zuko/OC. Eventual Sokka/Suki and Toph/Aang. Rated for violence and adult themes.


**Fragments**

**Chapter 1**

**(A/N: Just to clear up any confusing, the main character is referred to only as "she" for a while. Don't worry, you'll learn her name in this chapter, but I had a reason for withholding it for a while. Happy reading! :D)**

She was cold. Her mind couldn't process much else other than that—all she felt was the merciless, piercing cold that had rooted itself deep within her and hardened her veins to ice. She vaguely registered that she was in water, but the realization was fleeting; after remaining in her consciousness for a fraction of a second, it passed away, and then the biting chill took precedent once more.

She didn't know how long she remained in the water. To suggest that she had any concept of time at all, in fact, would be ludicrous. Her mind was swiftly losing its grip on things that usually came so naturally to her—breathing, moving her limbs, remembering her own name... And then, somewhere off in the distance, quiet as a whisper, someone spoke.

"Sir, there's someone in the water! I think it's a girl."

A girl—what was that again? She couldn't recall. All coherent thought was drifting—or flooding, rather—away with the water. The colours of the world around her that had already been rather dim were fading completely, attenuating to nothingness. She struggled to draw breaths, thinking how much more pleasant things would be if she gave up on that silly oxygen business all together. The cold would go away...and maybe it would take the pain with it.

Ah, sweet darkness...

…...

She didn't know where she was. She didn't know how long she had been in the darkness, and she could barely remember _who _she was. Her own name was—at first—a struggle to recall. Her mind was functioning more or less the same as it had been when she was in the water. There was, however, one crucial difference—one key component missing.

She was warm.

Oh, how delicious it was. The heat was everywhere—it coated every inch of her body like a beautiful, protective cocoon. For a while, she kept her eyes closed, as she let her awareness return to her, just breathing. Her chest rose and fell steadily, rhythmic and calming. As she lay there, pondering how wondrous her newfound warmth was, several thoughts swirled around in her mind; one, however, jumped rather startlingly to the forefront.

She was naked.

That was odd, and a bit unsettling, but she didn't jump up or scream as one might expect. Her lingering drowsiness paired with the comfort of her drastic change in body temperature had left her in some sort of hazy stupor. It took a great effort to even pry her eyes open. She managed to do so, and found herself in a magnificent place.

It appeared to be a bedchamber of some sort. The walls were paneled entirely with dark wood, and the bed where she was lying was adorned with a deep red blanket, its soft fabric the same as the cushy gold pillows surrounding her head. There were other pieces of furniture in the room as well—a small table and chair, seemingly made of the same wood as the walls, several maps hung here and there—but she didn't get to have a very good look at them.

"You're awake, I see."

She bit back her small scream of shock, but that was her only victory. In her surprise, she sat up sharply in the bed, gathering the soft blanket close to her to cover her bare chest. There, in a shadowy corner of the room, was where the voice had come from. A young man sat on one end of a small upholstered loveseat. His face was halfway shrouded in darkness, but she could still see one striking yellow eye staring her down.

"Wh-where am I?" It almost astonished her that she had a voice, but she wasn't nearly so foggy as she had been a few minutes previous. The shock of the boy speaking and the rush of adrenaline that had followed had worked to clear her mind a bit.

"I'll be asking the questions," the boy said harshly. "You're on my ship." He stood up, and she had to stifle the gasp that immediately built itself up in her lungs. Though she managed to remain quiet, her eyes widened as she looked at him. The side of his face that had been hidden by the shadows was horribly disfigured. An enormous scar wrapped around his left eye, the shape of it and its glaring red hue causing it to closely resemble a flame.

A burn mark.

He seemed to be expecting her reaction, because the boy continued with little more than a grimace. "What is your name?"

"Ema."

He walked closer to her, his steps slow, deliberate...calculated. All the while, he stared directly into her eyes, never once letting his harsh gaze falter. She wanted to shrink away, but found that her body refused to comply with her brain's frantic demand. Her muscles were all but paralyzed as she stared, petrified, up at him.

"Tell me, Ema, do you remember what happened to you?"

Finally able to tear her gaze from his, Ema bit her lip. Everything was so...disjointed. Yes, that was a good word for it. She could recall small fragments with relative clarity, but the rest seemed just beyond her reach.

The boy appeared to be waiting for her answer when she looked back up at him, and she didn't want to risk causing him to become impatient. "I...I don't remember much. I remember being in water...being cold..." Just thinking about it made Ema want to shudder, but she suppressed it.

"What about before that? Where did you come from?"

She put a hand to her head. Everything was so...fuzzy. "I...I don't remember." Her voice began to shake. "I can't remember anything! I remember the water and the cold, but before that...nothing."

He gazed at her intently, and Ema couldn't tell if it was skepticism, anger, or something else that she saw in his yellow eyes. "Nothing?"

She tried with all her might; really, she did. She wanted to remember...at least for _something _to come to mind. Any little snippet, and she would be fine, but... "No...nothing. I can remember my name, but...nothing else." Ema raised a timid gaze to the boy, her eyes still wide. She was aware that she most likely looked like a confused, terrified child, but she wasn't too concerned at that moment. It was a fairly accurate representation, anyway.

The boy's gaze betrayed no hint of pity. He simply looked at her, appraising her, as though deciding his course of action. She would be lying if she said that the prospect didn't immediately strike fear into her heart.

His next words were growled more than they were spoken. "Since I have no reason to believe yet that you are a threat, I will allow you to remain on my ship as a guest." He stepped closer to her, until their faces were only a few inches apart "Let me make myself inherently clear, though. If you give me even the slightest reason to suspect that you are an enemy to me or any of my crew, I won't hesitate you take you as a prisoner. Do you understand?"

Ema's eyes widened even further, but she took no time in nodding her assent. "Y-yes, I understand." One thing was confusing her, though. She didn't know even she should even dare to voice her question, but she decided to take a chance. "What...what do you mean this is your ship, uh, Sir?"

The boy backed a few steps away from her until they were once more at a normal talking distance. His yellow eyes narrowed, but he didn't look particularly angry, so Ema tried to relax her tensed muscles. "I am Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation. I've been given a mission by my father, the Fire Lord, and this ship is under my command to help me complete my task."

Something sparked in Ema's mind, and she looked away from Zuko biting her lip. Apparently, he could tell she was thinking about something quite vehemently. "Are you remembering something?"

"I...I think so. I remember...there are four nations. The Fire Nation is one of them, and...and..." She trailed off, failing to recall the names of the three others. Zuko's tone an expression remained stonily in place when he spoke again.

"The Fire Nation, the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, and the Air Nomads," he supplied.

Ema nodded, still staring off somewhere into the distance. She knew there were four nations. Now, if only she could remember which one she came from...

When she looked up again, Ema was startled to see that Zuko had begun to walk away. She jumped a little, startled at his sudden change in position, and suddenly remembered something of dire importance.

"Wait! Prince Zuko, may I ask you another question?" Ema decided to try her luck, and pressed on without waiting for a response. "Why am I naked?"

Zuko turned back, letting his stare fall on her once more. Something about it was...different this time, though, something about the look in his eyes. He didn't look aggravated, nor did he look shrewd. Ema didn't have a name, in fact, for the flicker of emotion that crossed his eyes for those few seconds, or at least she couldn't remember it.

"You were nearly frozen to death," he said, rather slowly. "Cutting your clothes off of you was the only way to save your life." There was a long pause, in which they both simply stared at each other, neither of them especially wanting to speak. After a moment, Zuko turned away and resumed his walk to the door.

"One of the servants will bring you a change of clothes, and something to eat will be delivered to you in an hour. I suggest you eat all you can and try to regain some strength. You're very weak right now."

She watched him go, still clutching the blanket to her bare breast. The door shut with a resounding click behind him, and Ema sat completely still, unable to move for several moments. Her mind was abuzz with thousands of questions, quite a few of which seemed to center on the mysterious, surly Prince Zuko. He had saved her life, but he seemed to hate her.

Ema was finally roused from her thoughts when a knock came on the door. She called for whomever it was to come in, and thanked the servant for the clothes after the young boy set them on the edge of the bed. She was still in some far off place, but she managed to grant the boy a small smile before he left.

The change of clothes was a plain, simple dress, heavily creased in the places where it had been folded, as though it hadn't been touched in quite a while. It was the same deep red as most of the furniture in the room, with dark orange rings going around the wrists. She slipped it on and gazed at herself in a looking glass that was sitting in the corner of the room, next to the table.

The dress hugged her waist and torso, but flared out at the bottom. Looking at herself more closely, Ema noticed that she looked, for lack of a better word, like hell. Her light brown hair, though it was dry, had turned into a hideous mess of waves. There were deep purple bruises under her dark eyes, and her skin looked so pale and washed out that she was surprised she couldn't see straight through to her bones. She was sickly thin, almost to the point of looking boyish, and her ribs jutted out noticeably in the red dress.

Trying to ignore all of this (though still wishing quite desperately for a bath), Ema sat down heavily on the bed, resting her head in her hands.

_Why...why can't I remember? _

She wanted to, that much was certain. And for some inexplicable reason, she had an idea of just the person whose help she wanted in regaining her memory. Or rather, she just wanted to talk to him again.

Too bad he hated her.


End file.
